My home of Hollywood was the exiled haven of a legendary list of emigres, my mom serving many of them at 20th Century Fox or Chasen’s. Older teachers and colleagues spoke rapturously of working with Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter when they were with the Los Angeles Philharmonic or Columbia Symphony. That meant discovering Mahler would not be far away. Lotte Lehmann was at the Music Academy in Santa Barbara. Erich Wolfgang Korngold invents the film score here, his violinist granddaughter Katie living down the street from our house in Eagle Rock. Alma Mahler lives with Franz Werfel in Beverly Hills. Schoenberg is friends with Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers and his entire family are now great friends. And a very young Zubin Mehta was leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic, recording Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Varese and William Kraft, so the name Hans Swarowsky was in the air.

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (I could stop right there but it wouldn’t be honest) Schubert, Brahms, the Strauss Family, Bruckner, Wolf, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern. The strongest list of local composers on Planet Earth. The Viennese feel they own this music so in September of 1977 I set out to find out their secrets.

Song Hong Ensemble violinists Phan Thi To Trinh and Pham Truong Son at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

I began blogging about my LA International New Music Festival on September 17, 2013. What jumpstarted my story telling was a return trip to Vietnam, my fifth, to reconnect with old friends in Hanoi and see what new developments were underway in their one-of-a-one city, a fascinating burg if there ever was one.

My blog is now read in 78 countries with 3600 readers, so a short recapitulation is in order. My attraction for Vietnam is guided by two of the most important people in my life, my trusted acupuncturist Loi Trinh Le and my mother Louise. You can read about Trinh (her English name) in my second post from September. And that September 17th date when I started my blog?

That auspicious date would be my mother’s birthday. She’s brought me plenty of good luck hovering like an angel over all of my work in Vietnam. And mom would be thrilled about the recent visit to LA from our friends in Hanoi, the Song Hong Ensemble!